Open Line

ARTICLES ABOUT OPEN LINE BY DATE - PAGE 5

by CARLYN CRESSMAN (A free-lance story for The Morning Call) | November 14, 1996

The Friends of the Library will sponsor a show by Middle-Earth Storytellers at the Upper Perkiomen Valley Library in Red Hill. Children, from the youngest to those in middle school, can be a part of the performance at 7 p.m. tomorrow in the community room of the library. There are no lines to learn, but as the storyteller begins his tale, the characters begin to act out their parts: knights with swords and shields, small furry animals, goblins, pirates, princesses and bearded dwarves.

Canned food and toys are among the items area organizations are seeking to help brighten the holidays for the needy. Quakertown National Bank is helping the annual "Toys for Tots" campaign by sponsoring "Giving Trees" at the main office in Quakertown as well as at its branch locations in Coopersburg, Pennsburg and the Country Square shopping center in Dublin. New, unwrapped toys may be brought to the branches and placed under the Christmas trees in the lobbies. The toys will be distributed to the "Toys for Tots" campaign in time for Christmas.

In spite of the drizzle yesterday afternoon, 200 people walked in the 17th annual Upper Perkiomen CROP Walk for World Hunger Relief, and raised $6,137 in pledges. More is expected in donations. The 8-mile walk went from the Upper Perkiomen Middle School in East Greenville to St. John's Church in Sumneytown. It was sponsored by Open Line and the Upper Perkiomen Valley Ministerium Association. One quarter of the proceeds will help stock the emergency food cupboard of Open Line, 452 Penn St., Pennsburg.

The 17th annual Upper Perkiomen Valley CROP Walk for World Hunger Relief is scheduled on April 30. Registration will take place at noon and the walk begins at 1:15 p.m. Open Line and the Upper Perkiomen Valley Ministerium Association are sponsors of the event. From the proceeds, 75 percent goes through Church World Service, a ministry of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., to help people in need throughout the world. Twenty-five percent returns to the area to help stock the emergency food cupboard of Open Line.

U.S. Rep. Paul McHale opened the telephone lines to constituents calling collect last night as part of a scheme to stay in touch while Congress burrows into the GOP Contract with America. McHale, D-15th District, is accepting calls himself between 5:30 p.m. and midnight each Wednesday through early April, the deadline set by House Republicans for votes on elements of the bold and controversial pact. Last night's first few calls ranged from a Lehigh University professor's invitation to visit Amsterdam to opinions on Social Security cuts and proposed changes in welfare and the minimum wage.

A $10,000 grant from Montgomery County will help Open Line in Pennsburg keep families from losing their homes. The county commissioners yesterday awarded a total of $110,000 to 13 nonprofit agencies that aid the homeless and work to prevent others from becoming homeless. The money comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through its Emergency Shelter Grant program. The county decides how to spend it. The 13 agencies had requested a total of $282,000. The county only had $110,000 and opted to give each agency at least part of what it wanted.

More than 357 walkers and joggers raised money yesterday in the 16th annual Upper Perkiomen CROP Walk for World Hunger Relief. About $8,282 was raised from pledges. The walk was sponsored by the Upper Perkiomen Valley Ministerial Association and Open Line, a multi-service agency which provides food services to people in the Upper Montgomery County and Upper Perkiomen Valley area. Participants spent nearly four hours on the 8-mile course from the Upper Perkiomen Valley Middle School in East Greenville to St. John's Church in Sumneytown.

Saturday has been designated as "Delaware Canal Clean-Up Day" along the 60-mile stretch of the Delaware Canal from Easton to Bristol. The annual event, sponsored by the Friends of the Delaware Canal, involves volunteers from all municipalities along the canal who will work together beginning at 9 a.m. This year, "Clean-Up Day" is being coordinated with Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Day, a project sponsored by the state Department of Transportation to...